Category: Hot Topics

The Contemporary Pedagogy course was a great and a very rewarding adventure! The more important aspect for me is that the course created a very strong sense of community – a welcoming place to discuss various themes, to express yourself, to listen to different perspectives and above all, to learn with you and the other […]

I get what Parker Palmer means when he argues we in education need to “uproot the myth of value-free knowledge.” Palmer argues cold, calculated, emotionally divorced students become cold, calculated, emotionally divorced graduates, emotionally divorced citizens, professionals, etc., and he argues this is not a good thing. Vulcans, Spock, logic over emotion, “needs of the […]

Like everything, the role of professoriate has been evolving in the 21st century and it will further keep on changing. Gone are the days when professors lectured large classes and students carefully listened to them while taking notes in their notebooks. Technology has brought about a major shift in how we learn. At the same time, there has been a lot of push from education researchers to implement learner-centered pedagogy in classrooms. And finally, academia has started to realize the inherent discrimination and exclusion that is propagated by the current education system and there is a need to impart education that is not only inclusive but also geared toward raising critical consciousness in students. The following paragraphs elaborate these points in details.

Use of technology:Students in the current times live in a digital world. They are connected to the Internet most of their day, are avid gamers, have shorter attention-span, and are experts in multi-tasking. They can get the same information being conveyed to them by the instructor in a classroom on the internet using their phones and hence do not necessarily need to pay attention to a lecture being delivered to them. The educators of the 21st century need to make use of the Internet and other technological advancements to engage students in the learning process and help them learn better.

Learner-centric pedagogy: Education research suggests that students learn and retain the content better if they are actively engaged in the learning process. At the same time, student-centric approaches increase student motivation to learn, build on students’ prior knowledge, help improve the transfer of learning from classroom to the real-life situations, and increase student metacognition. Hence, educators should move away from the lecture-based model of teaching to project-based and problem-based approach to learning which are student-centric.

Inclusive and critical education: Critical education aims to raise social and political awareness among students, help them recognize authoritarian tendencies in the classroom and the society, and empower them to raise voices against injustice and discrimination. Such an educational approach departs from the “baking system” of education which teats students as passive receivers of knowledge. Instead, critical education treats students as active agents in the process of knowledge construction. The teachers, instead of acting as “dispensers of knowledge” act as “transformative agents” who help students transform reality by constantly interacting with it. The present day education should aim at promoting critical consciousness in students. Also, education should be inclusive in that it provides opportunity to all the students irrespective of their class, race, gender, nationality, sexuality, and other identities to learn and thrive without discrimination and prejudice of any kind.

As the future educators, it becomes our responsibility to keep up with the changes in the nature of teaching and learning. We need to devise teaching strategies that effectively use the technology around us to foster students’ learning, use approaches that are centered on the students instead of being focused on the teachers, and, most importantly, get rid of the banking model of education. We need to create a learning environment that empowers students from all backgrounds and identities, and raises critical awareness in them.

I had no clue what to write about this week until I watched the TEDxYouth talk by Seth Godin called “Stop Stealing Dreams.” Specifically, I got interested in writing when I heard Mr. Godin say “…if it’s work, they try to figure out how to do less. And if it’s art, we try to figure … Continue reading All Play and No Work

As I reflect on the past semester, I feel as if it’s been a blur. A rush of papers, projects, proposal writing assignments, tests, long drives to doctors appointments, endless traffic….like I’m on a treadmill that my legs can’t keep up with. Yet, amidst all of the stressors life seems to throw at us…amidst the “blurriness”…

This week we are exploring “Attention and Multi-Tasking”. I had different ideas of what to write for the blog, but I couldn’t decide in which to elaborate more about, and in honor to the topic of the week, I decided to share the three threads of thought that came to my mind while reading the … Continue reading I Couldn’t Keep My Attention for this Blog…

I could not stop myself from being annoyed when I read Nicholas Carr’s article regarding Google making us stupid. The idea that the Internet is “making” us unable to read longer or think deeply seems like a personal problem more than one shared by society at large. Carr points to a study conducted by the … Continue reading Playing the Blame Game

In the midst of the discussion about the impacts of the technology-connected life in our ways of thinking and living (we have this week 11 many brilliant insights and thoughts from both sides, negative and positive), I would like to pick up some interesting arguments that point some positive impacts of that transformation. Clive Thompson […]

When reading this article I laughed so hard. It has many contradictions and makes no sense. The author gathers some biological evidence and pretends to use them but does a bad job at it and misses his goals. The author definitely did not convince me how Google is making us stupid. He definitely reminded me that […]